Page 128 of Flames and Blood

“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”

He nods, slow, and looks at the window for a moment. When he looks back, there’s nothing hard in his face.

“I’m not going to ask you to stay. I’ve watched you every day since I came up that road, and every one of them took something out of you. I’d rather have the truth once than a performance for the rest of my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You never told me it would be otherwise. I did the hoping on my own.” He says it kindly, and that makes it worse. “Go and find out what you need to find out. If it turns out to be him, I hope he’s worth what you’re about to give up. If it isn’t, you know where I am, and my answer won’t have changed.”

I don’t have anything to say to that. He crosses the room and puts a hand on my shoulder, briefly, the first time he’s touched me since he’s been here. Then he takes it away and lets me go.

My mother is where I left her, letters half finished. She looks up.

“I’m going.” I don’t bother softening it.

She stiffens a fraction. “Then let me tell you what that means, because I won’t have you say I didn’t warn you.” It’s the same voice she uses for everything.

“Go ahead,” I tell her.

“You walk out that gate to chase a man who is not of your class, and you are no longer the Heir. The seat goes to whoever the council names next. Your name comes off the wall.”

I set my shoulders. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Her eyes narrow. “You realize that the Eyrie gate might not open to you again.”

I swallow. Low blow. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

She folds her hands. “There is another way, Kallista. Stay. Marry Kaevor in three weeks. You keep the seat, and you keep your name, and everything I’ve just said stays between us.”

“No.”

“That’s my whole offer. I won’t repeat it.”

“You don’t need to. I’m going.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I wait for the argument. The pleading. The thing a mother is supposed to do when a daughter is walking away.

“Your mind is made up.”

“It is.”

She picks her pen back up. “Then go carefully,” she says, and starts on the next letter, and doesn’t look up again.

If I were a different daughter with a different mother, I might wait a second to see her show some sign of remorse. But I know better than that.

I leave and go back to my suite.

I take almost nothing. A change of clothes. The little money that’s mine and not the clan’s. My grandmother’s ring, on my hand, where it has been since I took it out of the box. Nothing with the Aldrake’s mark on it.

Aldis is at the top of the stairs when I come down with the bag.

He doesn’t ask where I’m going. He looks at the bag, then at me. Then he reaches past me to the wall, takes down a small lamp from its bracket, and holds it out.

“Six hours of oil,” he says. “Take it.”

“I’m not supposed to take clan property.”

“It’s a lamp, Heir. Nobody counts lamps.” He steps aside from the top step. “Go carefully on the wet steps.”